Loretta reads Mother's Questions and Answers:1957-01-23

Transcript of:

Mother's Questions and Answers: January 23, 1957

by Loretta, 2019 (1:08:08)

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Mother's Questions and Answers

This week, Mother speaks about delight – pure delight, the true delight of being. She explains that our desires and pleasures bring us an experience which is mixed, fugitive, and altogether unsatisfactory. And our desires and pleasures keep us from knowing pure delight.

The first step to pure delight, is to know what our desires are when they arise in our consciousness, and then to refrain from doing anything to satisfy these desires. The second step is feeling the infinitely greater delight one feels when one overcomes a desire. Then we can enter a little more deeply into our being, with our aspiration, and our sincere, selfless self-giving; and then we will be open to the divine Grace. The grace which is the giver of delight. And then it comes, that in our heart, we feel a kind of sweet warmth – a comfortable, intimate, radiant warmth. This is our foretaste of delight. Mother says that after this, the path is easy.

She explains that when we begin to be almost ready for pure delight of existence, we feel delight of being everywhere, and in everything. We feel it in trees, in plants; we feel it in the inanimate objects around us. One touches a thing, and one feels this delight.

Mother says that often we have to work a little to feel it in people, because of all the lower things that people carry and all their problems. But this delight, in itself, does not depend on anything. It does not depend on a more or less favorable state: it is, it is always, it is everywhere. It is the raison d'etre of the universe – the reason our universe exists.

And we feel this delight of being, of existing, just as we are – just by being, when we get to that stage. Just because we are, we feel this delight of being.

Sri Aurobindo writes about it in Savitri. In “The Debate of Love and Death”, (that's Book Eleven, Canto III), he says:

A secret air of pure felicity

Deep like a sapphire heaven our spirits breathe;

Our hearts and bodies feel its obscure call,

Our senses grope for it and touch and lose.

If this withdrew, the world would sink in the Void;

If this were not, nothing could move or live.

A hidden Bliss is at the root of things.

A mute Delight regards Time’s countless works:

To house God’s joy in things Space gave wide room,

To house God’s joy in self our souls were born. (p.629)

In the aphorism that Mother reads today, Sri Aurobindo gives the analogy of the sweetness of honey, tasting itself. He says this to evoke the feeling of the same delight in all parts of creation. And he also brings us this feeling as part of the new supramental creation, in Savitri.

In “The Book of the Divine Mother” (Book Three, Canto III), King Aswapati, the traveller of the worlds, enters the House of the Spirit and the New Creation. And there Sri Aurobindo describes his own experience of the supramental consciousness that he had, in his spiritual journey in his own inner being. So in the canto, we have some different sentences where he describes what it is like:

Then suddenly there came a downward look.

As if a sea exploring its own depths,

A living Oneness widened at its core

And joined him to unnumbered multitudes.

A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love

Caught all into a sole immense embrace;

Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast

And each became the self and space of all.

The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,

To feel was a flame-discovery of God,

All mind was a single harp of many strings,

All life a song of many meeting lives;

For worlds were many, but the Self was one. (p.322)

There was no sob of suffering anywhere;

Experience ran from point to point of joy:

Bliss was the pure undying truth of things. (p.324)

All turned to all without reserve’s recoil:

A single ecstasy without a break,

Love was a close and thrilled identity

In the throbbing heart of all that luminous life. (p.325)

An all-revealing all-creating Bliss,

Seeking for forms to manifest truths divine,

Aligned in their significant mystery

The gleams of the symbols of the Ineffable

Blazoned like hues upon a colourless air

On the white purity of the Witness Soul.

These hues were the very prism of the Supreme,

His beauty, power, delight creation’s cause. (p.326)

Sri Aurobindo's poems and sonnets are all like songs of delight. Delight and ecstasy flow out of them, even when he isn't speaking about joy or delight. But there's one in which he does write directly about his own, beautiful experience all through the poem. It is so evocative, that it just carries you into delight when you read it. One line in the sonnet says, “I am drunken with the glory of the Lord”. This is a state of ecstasy has been expressed throughout history by great spiritual beings of all religions. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, King David dances in the streets; he's not even wearing his proper kingly uniform. He's wearing his undergarments. The Ark of the Covenant is coming back, and he's so carried away by ecstasy that he's singing the praises of God as he dances. And when you read the Bible, you see that he can't help himself – he' simply carried away by all his bliss.

There are many such stories in India. Mirabai, the famous writer, songwriter and wonderful mystic, wrote many songs of bliss to the Lord. So did Kalidasa and Kabir. And there were many stories of saints dancing in the streets, drunk with the glory of God. Famous saints, and not-so-famous saints. Here is this lovely experience of pure delight, Sri Aurobindo's poem:

The Bliss of Brahman

I am swallowed in a foam-white sea of bliss,

I am a curving wave of God’s delight,

A shapeless flow of happy passionate light,

A whirlpool of the streams of Paradise.

I am a cup of His felicities,

A thunderblast of His golden ecstasy’s might,

A fire of joy upon creation’s height;

I am His rapture’s wonderful abyss.

I am drunken with the glory of the Lord,

I am vanquished by the beauty of the Unborn;

I have looked alive on the Eternal’s face.

My mind is cloven by His radiant sword,

My heart by His beatific touch is torn,

My life is a meteor-dust of His flaming Grace.

In this class, we see even more the closeness and the trust, and the familiarity that the children have with the Mother. In January of 1957, Mother was 78 years old. We can feel her love, and her work to help these young students become conscious. And we can feel their response, as though she were their own mother, or a very dear, close and loving friend.

If you listen to the tape, you can hear Mother's voice becoming ecstatic when she speaks of the joy in things. Her voice is filled with that delight that she is talking about. It's not necessary to understand the words in French to feel that. And then, she even tells the class, when she's answering another question, that she was deliberately and purposely evoking the delight in things when she spoke about things radiating their delight of existence. She says, “...just now, when I was evoking this joy which is in things...”. So you can hear Mother doing this.

The original French tape-recording of Mother's class will play right after the English translation.

It's January 23, 1957. We're all in the Playground; and in fact, just being in the Playground is a delight. Just being in the presence of such a great being, such a realized being who has realized the delight of existence, one feels that delight. Because it radiates from her. People seeing Mother go into bliss. And we've been seeing Mother once a week. And we're waiting for her to read. And she starts reading Sri Aurobindo's aphorism, which is called “The End”...

23 January 1957

---

“The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the Divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity.

But that immergence is not in the nature of an annihilation. Extinction is not the fulfilment of all this search and passion, suffering and rapture. The game would never have been begun if that were to be its ending.

Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.

What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably.

And what is the middle? Division that strives towards a multiple unity, ignorance that labours towards a flood of varied light, pain that travails towards the touch of an unimaginable ecstasy. For all these things are dark figures and perverse vibrations.

And what is the end of the whole matter? As if honey could taste itself and all its drops together and all its drops could taste each other and each the whole honeycomb as itself, so should the end be with God and the soul of man and the universe.

Love is the key-note, Joy is the music, Power is the strain, Knowledge is the performer, the infinite All is the composer and audience. We know only the preliminary discords which are as fierce as the harmony shall be great; but we shall arrive surely at the fugue of the divine Beatitudes.”

Sri Aurobindo, “Thoughts and Glimpses”

[(This time, Mother doesn't have to wait for questions, she doesn't have to ask – immediately we hear the voice of a girl:)]

How can one “learn of pure delight”?

First of all, to begin with, one must through an attentive observation grow aware that desires and the satisfaction of desires give only a vague, uncertain pleasure, mixed, fugitive and altogether unsatisfactory. That is usually the starting-point.

Then, if one is a reasonable being, one must learn to discern what is desire and refrain from doing anything that may satisfy one’s desires. One must reject them without trying to satisfy them. And so the first result is exactly one of the first observations stated by the Buddha in his teaching: there is an infinitely greater delight in conquering and eliminating a desire than in satisfying it. Every sincere and steadfast seeker will realise after some time, sooner or later, at times very soon, that this is an absolute truth, and that the delight felt in overcoming a desire is incomparably higher than the small pleasure, so fleeting and mixed, which may be found in the satisfaction of his desires. That is the second step.

Naturally, with this continuous discipline, in a very short time the desires will keep their distance and will no longer bother you. So you will be free to enter a little more deeply into your being and open yourself in an aspiration to... the Giver of Delight, the divine Element, the divine Grace. And if this is done with a sincere self-giving — something that gives itself, offers itself and expects nothing in exchange for its offering — one will feel that kind of sweet warmth, comfortable, intimate, radiant, which fills the heart and is the herald of Delight.

After this, the path is easy.

[(Another girl:)] Sweet Mother, what is the true Delight of being?

That very one of which I am speaking!

Then, Sweet Mother, here when Sri Aurobindo speaks of an existence “that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being”, what is this delight?

The delight of existing.

There comes a time when one begins to be almost ready, when one can feel in everything, every object, in every movement, in every vibration, in all the things around — not only people and conscious beings, but things, objects; not only trees and plants and living things, but simply any object one uses, the things around one — this delight, this delight of being, of being just as one is, simply being. And one sees that all this vibrates like that. One touches a thing and feels this delight. But naturally, I say, one must have followed the discipline I spoke about at the beginning; otherwise, so long as one has a desire, a preference, an attachment or affinities and repulsions and all that, one cannot — one cannot.

And so long as one finds pleasures — pleasure, well, yes, vital or physical pleasure in a thing — one cannot feel this delight. For this delight is everywhere. This delight is something very subtle. One moves in the midst of things and it is as though they were all singing to you their delight. There comes a time when it becomes very familiar in the life around you. Of course, I must admit that it is a little more difficult to feel it in human beings, because there are all their mental and vital formations which come into the field of perception and disturb it. There is too much of this kind of egoistic asperity which gets mixed with things, so it is more difficult to contact the Delight there. But even in animals one feels it; it is already a little more difficult than in plants. But in plants, in flowers, it is so wonderful! They speak all their joy, they express it. And as I said, in all familiar objects, the things around you, which you use, there is a state of consciousness in which each one is happy to be, just as it is. So at that moment one knows one has touched true Delight. And it is not conditioned. I mean it does not depend upon... it depends on nothing. It does not depend on outer circumstances, does not depend on a more or less favourable state, it does not depend on anything: it is a communion with the raison d’être of the universe.

And when this comes it fills all the cells of the body. It is not even a thing which is thought out — one does not reason, does not analyse, it is not that: it is a state in which one lives. And when the body shares in it, it is so fresh — so fresh, so spontaneous, so... it no longer turns back upon itself, there is no longer any sense of self-observation, of self-analysis or of analysing things. All that is like a canticle of joyous vibrations, but very, very quiet, without violence, without passion, nothing of all that. It is very subtle and very intense at the same time, and when it comes, it seems that the whole universe is a marvellous harmony. Even what is to the ordinary human consciousness ugly, unpleasant, appears marvellous.

Unfortunately, as I said, people, circumstances, all that, with all those mental and vital formations — that disturbs it all the time. Then one is obliged to return to this ignorant, blind perception of things. But otherwise, as soon as all this stops and one can get out of it... everything changes. As he says there, at the end: everything changes. A marvellous harmony. And it is all Delight, true Delight, real Delight.

This demands a little work.

And this discipline I spoke about, which one must undergo, if it is practised with the aim of finding Delight, the result is delayed, for an egoistic element is introduced into it, it is done with an aim and is no longer an offering, it is a demand, and then.... It comes, it will come, even if it takes much longer — when one asks nothing, expects nothing, hopes for nothing, when it is simply that, it is self-giving and aspiration, and the spontaneous need without any bargaining — the need to be divine, that’s all.

Mother, will you explain this “drop of honey”?

Oh! the honey.... But that is an image, my child.

He says: “If one could imagine....” It is simply to give a more concrete approach than intellectual abstractions. He says: If you can imagine, for example, a honeycomb, well... a honeycomb which would have the capacity to taste itself and at the same time each drop of honey; not only to taste itself as honey, but to taste itself in each drop, being each drop of the honeycomb, and if each one of these drops could taste all the others, itself and all the others, and at the same time if each drop could taste, could have the taste of the whole honeycomb as if it were itself.

So, it would be a honeycomb capable of tasting itself and tasting in detail all the drops in the honeycomb, and each drop capable of tasting itself and all the others individually and the honeycomb as a whole, as itself.... It is a very precise image. Only you must have some power of imagination!

Like that I understand. I am asking what it means.

Honey is something delicious, isn’t it? So, these are the sweetnesses of divine Delight.

And just now, when I was evoking this joy which is in things, spontaneous, simple, this joy which is at the heart of everything, well, for the physical body it has something truly... oh! naturally, the taste of honey is very crude and gross in comparison — but something like that, something extremely delicious. And very simple, very simple and very integral in its simplicity; very complete in its simplicity and yet very simple.

You see, this is not something to be thought out, one must have the power to evoke it, one must have some imagination. So, if one has this capacity, one can do that simply by reading, then one can understand.... It is an analogy, it is only an analogy, but it is an analogy which truly has a power of evocation.

But everyone will imagine something different, won’t he, Mother?

Obviously. But that doesn’t matter! It will be good for him.

(Silence)

Is that all?

I had brought some questions I have been asked, but I think it is already rather late. (Mother glances at some questions.)

There is one which is terribly intellectual which we shall leave for another day. There is another... which is only a semblance, and then there is a third which is interesting but needs a detailed reply, and this evening it is already a little late.

However here is a question which can be answered very easily, it is from one of my own writings where it is said:

“It is a great mistake to suppose that the Divine Will always acts openly in the world.”

And then in Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga:

“If we see unity everywhere, if we recognise that all comes by the divine will... etc.”

And something else, from my Prayers and Meditations:

“It is Thou who art the doer in each thing and each being, and he who is near enough to Thee to see Thee in all actions without exception, will know how to transform each act into a benediction.” (December 10, 1912)

And so, I am asked how to reconcile these contradictions. But I don’t see any contradiction. For in the first sentence it is said: “It is a great mistake to suppose that the Divine Will always acts openly in the world....” I should say: it is extremely rare for it to act openly. It always acts, but not openly. And when it acts openly, that is what men call “miracles”. And it is something extremely rare. Most of the time it does not act openly, but that doesn’t mean it does not act. It doesn’t act openly, that’s all. So there’s no contradiction. That was all I meant. It is an altogether superficial contradiction arising from a misunderstanding of the words.

The Divine Will acts, but not openly. When it acts openly, well, men call that miracles. That’s all. But that does not prevent it from acting.

Le 23 janvier 1957

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La Fin

« La rencontre de l’homme et de Dieu suppose toujours une pénétration, une entrée du Divin dans l’humain et une immersion de l’homme dans la Divinité.

« Mais cette immersion n’est pas une espèce d’annihilation. L’extinction n’est pas l’aboutissement de toute cette recherche et cette passion, cette souffrance et cette extase. Le jeu n’aurait jamais commencé si telle devait en être la fin.

« La joie est le secret. Apprends la joie pure et tu apprendras Dieu.

« Quel fut donc le commencement de toute l’histoire ? Une existence qui s’est multipliée pour la seule joie d’être et qui s’est plongée en d’innombrables milliards de formes afin de pouvoir se retrouver elle-même innombrablement.

« Et quel en est le milieu ? Une division qui tend vers une unité multiple, une ignorance qui peine vers le torrent d’une lumière variée, une douleur en travail pour arriver au contact d’une extase inimaginable. Car toutes ces choses sont des formes obscures et des vibrations perverties.

« Et quelle sera la fin de toute l’histoire ? Si le miel pouvait se goûter lui-même et goûter toutes ses gouttes à la fois, et si toutes ses gouttes pouvaient se goûter l’une l’autre, et chacune goûter le rayon tout entier comme elle-même, telle serait la fin pour Dieu, pour l’âme de l’homme et l’univers.

« L’Amour est la tonique, la Joie est la mélodie, le Pouvoir est l’accord, la Connaissance est l’exécutant, le Tout infini est à la fois le compositeur et l’auditoire. Nous connaissons seulement les discordances préliminaires, qui sont aussi terribles que l’harmonie sera grande ; mais nous arriverons sûrement à la fugue des divines béatitudes. »

(Aperçus et Pensées)

Comment apprendre la joie pure ?

D’abord, pour commencer, il faut par une observation attentive, s’apercevoir que les désirs et la satisfaction des désirs ne donnent qu’un vague plaisir incertain, mélangé, fugitif et tout à fait insatisfaisant. Cela, c’est généralement le point de départ.

Alors, si l’on est un être raisonnable, il faut apprendre à discerner ce qui est désir et se refuser à faire quoi que ce soit pour satisfaire ses désirs. Il faut les repousser sans essayer de les satisfaire. Et alors le premier résultat, c’est justement l’une des premières constatations du Bouddha dans son enseignement : il y a une joie infiniment plus grande à maîtriser et supprimer un désir qu’à le satisfaire. Tout chercheur sincère et obstiné, au bout de quelque temps, plus ou moins longtemps, quelquefois très peu de temps, s’apercevra que c’est une vérité absolue, et que la joie qu’on éprouve à surmonter un désir est incomparablement supérieure au petit plaisir fugitif et mélangé que l’on peut trouver à la satisfaction de ses désirs. Cela, c’est le second pas.

Naturellement, avec cette discipline continue, au bout de très peu de temps les désirs seront à une distance et ne vous ennuieront plus. Alors vous serez libre d’entrer un peu plus profondément dans votre être et de vous ouvrir dans une aspiration vers... le Donneur de Joie, l’élément divin, la Grâce divine. Et si on le fait avec un don de soi sincère — quelque chose qui se donne, qui s’offre et qui n’attend rien en échange de son offrande —, on sentira cette espèce de chaleur, douce, confortable, intime, rayonnante, qui remplit le coeur et qui est l’avant-coureur de la Joie.

Après, le chemin est facile.

Douce Mère, quelle est la vraie joie d’être ?

Celle-là même dont je parle !

Alors, Douce Mère, ici, quand Sri Aurobindo parle d’une existence qui « se multiplie pour la seule joie d’être », quelle est cette joie ?

La joie d’exister.

Il y a un moment, quand on commence à être un peu prêt, où l’on peut sentir dans chaque chose, dans chaque objet, dans chaque mouvement, dans chaque vibration, dans toutes les choses qui vous entourent — pas seulement les gens et les consciences, mais les choses, les objets ; pas seulement les arbres et les plantes et les choses vivantes, mais simplement un objet dont on se sert, les choses qui vous entourent — cette joie, cette joie d’être, d’être tel qu’on est, simplement d’être. Et on voit que tout cela, ça vibre comme cela. On touche une chose et on sent cette joie. Mais naturellement, je dis, il faut avoir suivi la discipline dont j’ai parlé au commencement ; autrement, tant que l’on a un désir, une préférence, un attachement, ou des affinités et des répulsions et tout cela, on ne peut pas — on ne peut pas.

Et tant que l’on trouve des plaisirs — le plaisir, n’est‑ce pas, le plaisir vital ou physique à une chose — on ne peut pas sentir cette joie. Parce que cette joie est partout. Cette joie est quelque chose de très subtil. On bouge au milieu des choses et c’est comme si elles vous chantaient toutes leur joie. Il arrive un moment où c’est très familier dans la vie qui vous entoure. Naturellement, je dois reconnaître que c’est un petit peu difficile de la sentir dans les êtres humains, parce qu’il y a toutes leurs formations mentales et vitales qui viennent dans le champ de la perception et qui dérangent cela. Il y a trop cette espèce d’âpreté égoïste qui se mélange aux choses, alors c’est plus difficile de toucher la joie là. Mais même dans les animaux, on la sent ; c’est déjà un peu plus difficile que dans les plantes. Mais dans les plantes, dans les fleurs, c’est si merveilleux ! Elles parlent toute leur joie, elles l’expriment. Et je l’ai dit, n’est‑ce pas, tous les objets familiers, les choses que l’on a autour de soi, dont on se sert, il y a un état de conscience où chacune est joyeuse d’être, telle qu’elle est. Alors on sait à ce moment-là que l’on a touché la vraie joie. Et cela, ce n’est pas conditionné. Je veux dire, cela ne dépend pas... cela ne dépend de rien. Cela ne dépend pas des circonstances extérieures, cela ne dépend pas d’un état plus ou moins favorable, cela ne dépend de rien : c’est une communion avec la raison d’être de l’univers.

Et quand cela vient, ça remplit toutes les cellules du corps. Ce n’est pas une chose qui se pense même — on ne raisonne pas, on n’analyse pas, ce n’est pas cela : c’est un état dans lequel on vit. Et quand le corps y participe, il est si frais — si frais, si spontané, si... il n’a plus aucun retour sur lui-même, il n’y a plus aucun sens d’observation propre, d’analyse de soi ou des choses. Tout cela, c’est comme un cantique de vibrations joyeuses, mais très, très tranquille, sans violence, sans passion, rien de tout cela. C’est très subtil et très intense en même temps, et quand ça passe, il semble que tout l’univers soit une harmonie merveilleuse. Même ce qui pour la conscience humaine ordinaire est laid, déplaisant, apparaît merveilleux.

Malheureusement, comme je dis, les gens, les circonstances, tout cela, avec toutes ces formations mentales et vitales, ça dérange tout le temps. Alors on est obligé de retourner à cette perception si ignorante, si aveugle des choses. Mais autrement, dès que tout cela s’arrête et que l’on peut s’en sortir...tout change. Comme il le dit là, à la fin : tout change. Une harmonie merveilleuse. Et c’est tout la Joie, la vraie Joie, la Joie véritable.

Cela demande un peu de travail.

Et cette discipline dont j’ai parlé, à laquelle il faut se soumettre, si on la fait dans le but de trouver la joie, on retarde le résultat, parce qu’on y introduit un élément égoïste, on le fait dans un but et ce n’est plus une offrande, c’est une demande, et alors... Ça vient — ça viendra, même si cela prend beaucoup plus de temps — quand on ne demande rien, quand on n’attend rien, qu’on n’espère rien, que simplement c’est cela, c’est le don de soi et l’aspiration, et le besoin spontané, sans aucun marchandage — le besoin d’être divin, c’est tout.

Mère, tu expliqueras cette « goutte de miel » ?

Oh ! le miel !... Mais c’est une image, mon enfant.

Il dit : si l’on pouvait s’imaginer... C’est simplement pour donner une approche qui soit plus concrète que les abstractions intellectuelles. Il dit : si vous pouvez vous imaginer, par exemple, un rayon de miel, n’est‑ce pas... un rayon de miel qui aurait la capacité de se goûter lui-même et en même temps chaque goutte du miel ; non seulement de se goûter lui-même en tant que miel, mais de se goûter lui-même dans chaque goutte, étant chaque goutte du rayon de miel, et que chacune de ces gouttes puisse goûter toutes les autres, soi-même et toutes les autres, et en même temps que chaque goutte ait la capacité de goûter, d’avoir le goût du rayon tout entier comme si c’était elle-même.

Alors, ce serait le rayon capable de se goûter lui-même et de goûter en détail toutes les gouttes du rayon, et chaque goutte capable de se goûter elle-même et individuellement toutes les autres et le rayon tout entier comme une unité, comme ellemême... C’est une image très exacte. Seulement il faut avoir un pouvoir imaginatif !

Comme cela, j’ai compris. Je demande ce que cela signifie.

Le miel, c’est une chose délicieuse, n’est‑ce pas, alors ce sont les délices de la Joie divine.

Et tout à l’heure, quand j’évoquais cette joie qui est dans les choses, spontanée, simple, cette joie qui est au fond de tout, eh bien, pour le corps physique, cela a quelque chose de vraiment — oh ! naturellement, le goût du miel est très rude et grossier en comparaison —, mais quelque chose comme cela, quelque chose d’extrêmement délicieux. Et très simple, très simple et très total dans sa simplicité ; très complet dans sa simplicité, et pourtant très simple.

Cela, n’est‑ce pas, ce n’est pas une chose à penser, il faut avoir la capacité de l’évoquer, il faut avoir de l’imagination. Alors, si l’on a cette capacité, on peut faire cela rien qu’en lisant, alors on peut comprendre... C’est une analogie, qui n’est qu’une analogie, mais c’est une analogie qui a vraiment une capacité d’évocation.

Mais chacun imaginera quelque chose de différent,non, Mère ?

Évidemment. Mais cela ne fait rien ! Ce sera bon pour lui.

(silence)

C’est tout ?

J’avais apporté des questions que l’on m’a posées, mais je crois qu’il est déjà un peu tard. (Mère feuillette des questions)

Il y en a une qui est terriblement intellectuelle et que nous laisserons pour une autre fois. Il y en a une autre... qui n’est qu’une apparence, et puis il y en a une troisième qui est intéressante, mais à laquelle il faudrait répondre en détail, et ce soir il est déjà un peu tard.

Ici, n’est‑ce pas, la question à laquelle on peut répondre très facilement, c’est un texte de moi, où il est dit :

« C’est une grande erreur de supposer que la Volonté divine agit toujours ouvertement dans le monde. »

Et puis, dans La Synthèse des Yogas de Sri Aurobindo :

« Si nous voyons l’unité partout, si nous reconnaissons que tout arrive par la Volonté divine... etc. »

Et une autre chose de moi, dans Prières et Méditations :

« C’est Toi qui agis en toute chose et en tout être, et celui qui est assez proche de Toi pour Te voir en tout acte sans exception, sait transformer tout acte en bénédiction. » (Le 10 décembre 1912)

Et alors, on me demande comment réconcilier ces contradictions. Moi, je ne vois aucune contradiction. Parce que la première phrase où il est dit : « C’est une grande erreur de supposer que la Volonté divine agit toujours ouvertement dans le monde »... Je dirai : il est extrêmement rare qu’elle agisse ouvertement. Elle agit toujours, mais pas ouvertement. Et quand elle agit ouvertement, c’est ce que les hommes appellent des « miracles ». Et c’est une chose extrêmement rare. La plupart du temps elle n’agit pas ouvertement, mais cela ne veut pas dire qu’elle n’agisse pas. Elle n’agit pas ouvertement, c’est tout. Alors là, il n’y a pas de contradiction. C’était tout ce que je voulais dire. C’est une contradiction tout à fait superficielle née de l’incompréhension des mots.

La Volonté divine agit, mais pas ouvertement. Quand elle agit ouvertement, eh bien, les hommes appellent cela des miracles. Voilà. Mais cela ne l’empêche pas d’agir.

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